Vol 7 Chapter 17: The Rules of Heaven

While the original sought the Ascension Path and tried to provide helpers for his incarnation, the incarnation began seclusion cultivation.

He brought many cultivation resources, all gifts from the Eastern Glorious Immortal Emperor, but the incarnation felt that relying only on "proper" cultivation methods might not be enough.

The Immortal Realm... even if he had Immortal Emperor-level potential, cultivation still required time. By orthodox means, it would be difficult to continuously cross multiple Heavens in a short period, especially to rise from the True Immortal level to the Immortal Lord level.

He had to walk the Path of Demons!

"When I obtained the Beast Taming Path divine ability, I vaguely thought of this method. I don't know if it will work—let's try."

Lin Jing sat atop Mount Huangshan and sighed. From his bodily space... he took out a mosquito beast egg brought from the Cultivation World.

After hatching the mosquito beast, Lin Jing attempted to use a Control Soul for the first time.

Whoosh.

A platinum-hued Control Soul dove into this Qi Refinement Stage One mosquito beast. Its power immediately surged with a buzzing roar—not through the traditional Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, or Nascent Soul progressions, but as a raw, terrifying thrust that forcibly elevated its strength to the same True Immortal first Heaven as the incarnation.

Along with the power increase came an upgrade to the mosquito beast's racial talent—its blood-devouring reproductive force.

The incarnation offered a drop of his own fresh blood for the mosquito beast to absorb. In an instant, it vomited out a massive number of mosquito eggs. Seeing this, Lin Jing nodded in satisfaction.

"Power and racial ability both improved, but it still has no intelligence—just the same bloodthirsty instinct as the original mosquito beasts..."

The smile on the incarnation's face did not last long;

a murderous intent rose from Lin Jing.

Boom.

Lin Jing himself... with one punch he directly blasted the True Immortal mosquito beast he had bred to death.

After the blast killed it, he indeed suffered no backlash;

the Control Soul likewise remained intact and returned to its position, indicating Lin Jing could use it anytime to create a second pet beast of the same realm for control.

"Hahaha."

With the killing, a force surged into his body and his eyes reddened somewhat.

Slaughter Immortal Physique!

As long as there was slaughter, his realm could rise rapidly.

The biggest difficulty with this physique was finding enough enemies of sufficient quantity and quality to slaughter. To kill enough immortals would surely make him a public enemy of the Immortal Realm, so the Slaughter Immortal Physique was hard to carry to its end.

However, Lin Jing discovered that the pet beasts he enhanced via the Control Soul could also provide abundant slaying essence as nourishment for the Slaughter Immortal Physique and his realms!

Most importantly, performing this operation once seemed to cause little to no damage to the Control Soul, which led Lin Jing to find a shortcut to fast cultivation growth.

"By this method, as long as the Control Soul doesn't break, my realm can rapidly rise by killing mosquito beasts... Each time I advance a Heaven, I can create more True Immortal mosquito beasts, slay more of them, and my ascension speed will accelerate. At this rate, with the cultivation resources provided by the Eastern Glorious Immortal Emperor and this body's own potential, perhaps the Immortal Lord rank is within reach."

When he was weak, to grow stronger he had to endure using mosquito beasts as pet-beast food and as magical artifact energy.

Now, to get stronger, he still had to endure using mosquito beasts as nourishment for the Slaughter Immortal Physique.

The incarnation vowed that once he became an Immortal Emperor, he would bestow a new Holy Clan on the mosquito-beast race—their sacrifice was too small to be overlooked.

............

Seven years passed in the blink of an eye.

Because the incarnation carried the Thunder Dao Immortal Banner that the original had gifted, to him it felt like fifty years.

This Time Dao Immortal Banner is a lower-grade Immortal Artifact. If the life housed within is below the Immortal Realm, it can at most open a time flow rate of one hundred times, but if used by a True Immortal, it can only stimulate up to ten times flow rate. The higher the realm, the harder it is to use.

For fifty years, the incarnation spent his time constantly slaughtering mosquitoes;

the Immortal Realm values probing the Way of Heaven, and an immortal physique is essentially a projection of the Dao. Each constitution points toward a particular aspect of the Way.

"The Way of Heaven is ruthless. Its adjustments to nature are the greatest slaughter—an entire race's extinction, a dynasty's replacement;

many changes cannot escape the heavy hand of calamity named 'natural disaster,' wiping out countless lives."

"Murder for vengeance, murder for love, wanton slaughter... these are trivial. I use mosquito beasts as slaughter targets. If the True Immortal nine Heavens are already the limit, what kind of slaughter do I need to... universally ascend to the Immortal Lord realm?"

"One race's annihilation? A world's destruction? Or must I kill a real Immortal Lord?" After fifty years cultivating through slaughter, Lin Jing hit a bottleneck. The Path of Slaughter alone could not help him advance to Immortal Lord;

this method could not be stretched indefinitely.

The Immortal Lord realm generally required a deeper comprehension of the Way of Heaven—formally peeking at a corner of the Way from outside and condensing within a Dao-origin.

Each Immortal Lord's condensed Dao-origin could represent a different attribute of the Way;

an Immortal Lord might condense more than one Dao-origin. Only by successfully condensing a Dao-origin could one truly leave the foundational True Immortal stage and officially transform from seeker into an advanced wielder of heavenly rules.

Those great Immortal Realm powers capable of giving subordinates custom Dao rules were usually beings above the Immortal Lord realm. Trying to accomplish that below Immortal Lord likely required rule artifacts or legacy forces forged by Immortal Lord-level experts.

Lin Jing could feel that although Earth could not yet support Immortal Lord-level beings, his inability to breakthrough was not due to the world's suppression but because he himself had not yet touched that threshold.

"Five real years to rise from True Immortal first Heaven to its peak under Immortal Spirit energy far weaker than the real Immortal Realm is already an astonishing speed. But relying on the Path of Slaughter alone to realize Immortal Lord still holds difficulty. This body's Beast Taming Path talent is stronger;

otherwise, I should try to break through using the Beast Taming Path now."

The incarnation shook his head.

"Why must one explore the Way of Heaven? Why not directly contract and control a Way, and become a Dao Lord?"

"Normal cultivation is too troublesome."

"My original's thinking is correct. Since the ultimate goal of the Immortal Realm is to achieve Dao Lord, why not get there in one step? If the original wants to contract the entire Lower Realm, then can I directly contract... this Ancient Immortal Realm?"

"Under normal circumstances, it would be extremely hard, but the Ancient Immortal Realm is now in a state of decay, and I can attempt contracting only fragments rather than the whole. I can first contract... the embodied form of a particular rule of the Way of Heaven—what people call..."

"Fragments of a Heavenly Rule."

The Way of Heaven has its own operational rules. Find one such rule, force or assist it to birth its own awareness and become a rule-life, then contract it—using it as a breakthrough point..." The incarnation's eyes flashed;

the idea was audacious.

"If so, then next I must act against Heaven and invite the Way's backlash."

"Contract... since my original cultivates the Path of Contracts, then try to conquer fragments of the Contract Rule."

"The Movement Cosmos Sect Master once made me swear by the Way of Heaven so that when I broke the oath, I would suffer the Way's backlash. That is, breaking a contract with the Way."

"If that's the case, I can do the opposite: repeatedly swear by the Way and repeatedly break my vows, forcing the contract rule of the Way to retaliate against me, and then seize the opportunity to see the contract rule's true nature."

"...It shouldn't affect the original, right?"

"I, Lin Jing, swear by the Way of Heaven that within three days I will definitely marry a wife, continue the Lin family line;

if I break this vow, may I be punished by Heaven!"